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MODELING THE COLLECTIVE INQUIRY PROCESS IN MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATION Cassondra Brown San Diego State University [email protected] Susan Nickerson San Diego State University [email protected]

Starting with the notion that teachers learn as teacher educators model effective mathematics pedagogy, we examined what teacher educators model from the perspective of researcher, teacher educator, and teachers. Using the NCTM Professional Teaching Standards as a starting point of our analysis, we highlight the idea that teachers were not only engaged as learners of mathematics in a classroom community but also as professionals in a community of mathematics teachers. Here we redefine and elaborate on the NCTM Professional Teaching Standards as they apply to mathematics teacher education with respect to teachers engagement in a community of mathematics teachers. Introduction The NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991) express the vision of teachers who are well prepared to teach mathematics using student-centered instruction. This vision highlights the importance of teachers ability to select tasks that engage students intellect and deepen students understanding, orchestrate mathematical discourse, use technology and tools to pursue mathematical investigations, make connections to previous or developing knowledge, and guide individual, small group and whole class work. As recognized in the mathematics teacher education literature, such a shift in the classroom environment requires changes in the core dimension of mathematics instruction that are not easy to accomplish, may take several years, and require appropriate professional development (Clarke, 1994; Friel & Bright, 1997; Fennema & Nelson, 1997; Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1998). It has been argued that teachers instructional practices are shaped by their own learning experiences long before entering teaching in what Lortie (1975) calls an apprenticeship of observation. Thus, a major difficulty for teachers working to transform their teaching practices in accordance with the NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics is that many teachers experiences as learners of mathematics stand in stark contrast. One way to help teachers make this transition is to engage them as learners in inquiry-oriented mathematics communities where student-centered mathematics teaching is modeled. The results reported here are part of a larger study in which we investigate modeling by teacher educators in teacher education courses for practicing teachers. An analysis of the data revealed that the teachers are not only engaged as learners of mathematics in a classroom community, but also as professionals in a community of mathematics teachers. In this report, we redefine and elaborate on the NCTM Professional Teaching Standards specifically with respect to modeling professional practice by mathematics teacher educators. We illustrate this elaboration with an example. Theoretical Perspective We view learning as situated within practice. We presuppose that novices develop while embedded in a community alongside experts. Such engagement provides learners with multiple opportunities to build a conceptual model of desired practice. With respect to mathematics
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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teacher education this suggests that learning the teaching profession stems, at least in part, from the teaching teachers see and experience as learners and the activity they engage in as professionals. Thus, in mathematics teacher education modeling instructional practices is essential to learning about the practice of teaching since from this perspective the learning of and development of any practice emphasizes the influence of participation, observation and listening in as practice is modeled and mediated by culture and communication. The constructs of perceptual lived experience, intent participation, apprenticeship and cognitive apprenticeship share a situated perspective on learning from the milieu. They all suggest that knowledge is developed and deployed in activity and is not separable from or ancillary to learning and cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). In mathematics teacher education, teachers have the opportunity not only to learn mathematics, but also the practice of teaching mathematics from the mathematics instruction they experience as learners. When student centered instruction is modeled, teachers have the opportunity to understand their mature roles as professionals and develop a conceptual model of effective inquiry-oriented teaching. Literature The NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991) suggests learning to teach is a process of integration of theory and practice, and teachers should be afforded opportunities to comment and reflect on their own learning and teaching. The current reform movement in mathematics education has a strong underlying theme of the professionalism of teaching. Reform recommendations suggest that teachers ought to collaboratively plan instruction, reflect on practice, create and reflect on new practices, and support one anothers professional growth, (NCTM, 1991). This collaborative work of teachers allows teachers to share what they have learned from their experiences as practitioners and then act on what they learn through discussion to enhance their effectiveness as professionals so that students benefit (Astuto, Clark, Read, McGree, & Fernandez, 1993, Hord, 1997). Communication and collaboration such as this among school faculty and staff are important aspects of what researchers call a professional learning community or PLC (Dufour & Eaker, 1998; Astuto, Clark, Read, McGree, & Fernandez, 1993, Hord, 1997). A professional learning community is characterized by a supportive and shared leadership, collective creativity, shared values and vision, supportive conditions and shared personal practice. A major component of the PLC is the collective inquiry process. Dufour and Eaker summarize Ross, Smith, and Roberts (1994) description of the collective inquiry process: 1. Public reflectionmembers of the team talk about their assumptions and beliefs and challenge each other gently but relentlessly. 2. Shared meaningthe team arrives at common ground, shared insights. 3. Joint planningthe team designs action steps, an initiative to test their shared insights. 4. Coordinated actionthe team carries out the action plan. This action need not be joint action but can be carried out independently by the members of the team. At this point, the team analyzes the results of its actions and repeats the four-step cycle. For mathematics teachers this includes discussion and reflection about teaching, student learning and the evaluation of both, sharing insights about mathematics teaching and student thinking gained through practice, collaboratively lesson planning and so on. However, engaging in this collaborative process is not automatic. In reform-centered mathematics teacher education
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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the hope is that the teachers are enculturated into a professional learning community of mathematics teachers. In what ways can mathematics teacher educators foster the enculturation of mathematics teachers into the collective inquiry process of a professional learning community of mathematics teachers? In what follows we report on research conducted in mathematics teacher education courses for practicing teachers. The courses in this study provide teachers the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the mathematics they teach, and engage in activities that are important to the enculturation into collective inquiry process of a professional learning community of mathematics teachers as it is modeled by mathematics teacher educators. In this report we describe our analytical framework and discuss an emergent framework for how mathematics teacher educators model the collective inquiry process and how it parallels the NCTM standards. We further discuss implications for instruction. Method The mathematics courses for practicing teachers discussed in this report are a part of a university-based professional development group. As with many mathematics professional development programs, the goal is to move teachers forward in their thinking about content and student learning so teachers can work to help increase student achievement in mathematics (Nickerson, 2000; Sowder, 2007). These professional development programs are designed to provide extra preparation for teaching mathematics, not only by communicating pedagogical knowledge, but also by providing opportunities for teachers to deepen their content knowledge by collaboratively reflecting on their teaching and student learning. However, as the focus of this study is on modeling the collective inquiry process the results will focus on the latter. In this study we observed the mathematics professional development of three cohorts: a primary elementary cohort (grades k-3), an upper elementary cohort (grades 4-6), and a middle school cohort. The classroom data was collected in two consecutive classes for each of the three cohorts. All class sessions were videotaped and a researcher was present at all sessions and took field notes. The videos of the classroom sessions were reviewed to create a descriptive timeline of classroom events to aid in analysis. The teacher educators were interviewed pre and post observation and several participants were interviewed to enable the coding and subsequent creation of an integrated data set of complementary perspectives. Starting with the NCTM teaching standards the classroom sessions coupled with the timeline analyzed in a cyclical process of coding and search for confirming and disconfirming evidence (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to delineate the categories of modeled instructional acts. Once we developed what we thought to be an exhaustive group of codes, we coded a few episodes separately and compared codes for inter-rater reliability. The coders were in agreement 78% of the time and discussion resolved discrepancies. The primary cause of discrepancies was related to sub-codes of the categories. Analytical Framework The NCTM Standards (1991) advocate a shift in the mathematics classroom environment from an emphasis on mathematics as an individual pursuit that privileges the memorization of algorithms and procedures to an emphasis on mathematics as a collaborative endeavor among members of the classroom community where logical reasoning and argumentation are used to solve problems. In Table 1 following, we provide a brief summary of the NCTM Professional
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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Teaching Standards as they are described by under four headings: tasks, discourse, environment, and analysis. Table 1. Brief Summary of NCTM Professional Teaching Standards (1991) 1) Pose worthwhile Tasks are the projects, questions, problems, constructions, mathematical tasks applications, and exercises in which students engage. They provide the intellectual contexts for students' mathematical development. 2) Orchestrate class Discourse refers to the ways of representing, thinking, discourse talking, and agreeing and disagreeing that teachers and students use to engage in those tasks. The discourse embeds 3) Promote student discourse fundamental values about knowledge and authority. Its nature is reflected in what makes an answer right and what 4) Encourage the use of counts as legitimate mathematical activity, argument, and tools to enhance discourse thinking. Teachers, through the ways in which they orchestrate discourse, convey messages about whose knowledge and ways of thinking and knowing are valued, who is considered able to contribute, and who has status in the group. 5) Create a leaning Environment represents the setting for learning. It is the environment that fosters unique interplay of intellectual, social, and physical the development of each characteristics that shape the ways of knowing and working students mathematical that are encouraged and expected in the classroom. It is the power context in which the tasks and discourse are embedded; it also refers to the use of materials and space. 6) Engage in ongoing Analysis is the systematic reflection in which teachers analysis of teaching and engage. It entails the ongoing monitoring of classroom learning life-how well the tasks, discourse, and environment foster the development of every student's mathematical literacy and power. Through this process, teachers examine relationships between what they and their students are doing and what students are learning The NCTM Professional Teaching Standards served as a lens for examining how the mathematics teacher educators support the teachers improved participation in a mathematics classroom community of learners. From this emerged parallel categories to describe the mathematics teacher educators interactions with the teachers modeling the collective inquiry process of mathematics teachers during the class sessions. Results Starting with the NCTM Professional Teaching Standards as a basis for our analysis, the classroom observations and video were used to redefine the categories of interaction of the mathematics teacher educators with the teachers to shed light on how the teacher educators model the larger practice of the teaching profession. One of the results that emerged was that in the mathematics courses for practicing teachers in this study, the teachers were engaged on two levels, as learners of mathematics in a classroom a community and as professionals in a
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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community of mathematics teachers. In this section we redefine and elaborate on the NCTM Professional Teaching Standards in terms of mathematics teacher education as they are modeled in mathematics courses for practicing teachers with respect to the collective inquiry process of a community of mathematics teachers. The mathematics teacher educators model the collective inquiry process of a professional learning community of mathematics teachers by engaging teachers in activities that are a part of the practice of teaching mathematics. The activities were often related to evaluating and reflecting on student learning and teaching, lesson planning, and thinking about student thinking, understanding and learning and so on. These activities were mediated by the mathematics teacher educator and provided opportunities for teachers to increase their participation in the collective inquiry process in a community of mathematics teachers. Table 2 characterizes the mathematics teacher educators instructional acts that have the capacity to foster the enculturation of mathematics teachers into the collective inquiry process. In this section of the results we will describe a classroom episode from the middle school cohort and discuss the mathematics teacher educators interactions with teachers as they engaged in an activity that has the capacity to promote teachers enculturation in the collective inquiry process. Here the teacher educator is Karla, the teachers are the participants in the mathematics teacher education and the term student is reserved for the children that the teachers teach. The mathematics teacher educator, Karla, began the class by asking the teachers to discuss in their groups the student work that they brought from their own students and choose a few examples that they thought would be interesting to share with the class. The student work the teachers brought was drawn from a predetermined task that all of the teachers in the class tried with their own students, called try-ons in this context. This particular try-on was a banquet hall problem that stated as follows: A banquet hall has a huge supply of various shaped tables (square, trapezoidal and hexagonal). Only one person can sit on each side of a table, except the longest side of the trapezoid table, which can seat two people. The same shape tables must be used for each banquet. The banquet rooms are long and narrow, so the tables can only be put together as shown , . For a given table shape, develop a rule or formula for the number of people that can be seated at 1 table, 2 tables, 5 tables, 100 tables, or n tables. (Adapted from Burns 1992) Figure 1. Try-on task. As the groups discussed their students work, Karla walked about the room, listened in on the groups conversations and briefly joined the discussions of each group in turn. Much of the discussion in groups focused on trying to understand what the students were thinking, the reasonableness of the students approach, common approaches the students took, etc. After a few minutes Karla asked the teachers if they need more time to discuss. A show of hands suggested that the teachers needed more time. Karla decided to let them continue their discussions for a few more minutes and continued to listen in and discuss with groups. After a few more minutes Karla brought the class back together so the teachers could discuss the task as a class. Ms. K shared a student's work related to using tables to determine linear relationships. Karla placed the students work on the document camera and asked Ms. K what she could tell the class about this the work. (See Figure 2.)
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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Figure 2. Student work shared in the professional development class. Ms. K explained that the student could determine the number of seats at the banquet by her rule of adding a certain number for each table added, but could not generalize that statement with a formula. Ms. N, a teacher in Ms. Ks group, further elaborated on the student's work and explained that the student could reason about the situation additively but had not yet transitioned her thinking about repeated addition as multiplication or make use of variables to further generalize the situation. Karla pointed out that the student is making use of a recursive relationship to solve the task but not the functional relationship. Ms. N expressed that they chose to share that example of student work because many of their students thought about the task in a similar fashion. They discussed another students work where the student did use multiplication to do the task but did not generalize the linear relationship with a function and was unsure how to think about n tables. This particular student chose n to be 200 and found the number of seats available if there were 200 tables. Karla stated if we had to order the students in their level of understanding it seems this student seems to exhibit a little less understanding than the one in their last example. Karla noted that the students were from 6th grade and that they might not expect that all students at this level would be able to could come up with a function to express the relationship. Karla then asked the teachers to think about what would be next for these students to push them further in their thinking if they were going to be their teacher next year. Ms. N suggested that they could give the kids practice translating words into variable expressions; and once they have practice with that they could go back to the banquet hall task and ask them how they could use their experience translating words into variable expressions to determine the number of seats when there are n tables are put together. Karla reiterated what Ms. N said and Ms. K added that the practice could start with simple translations that yield expressions like 2x and 3x and so on. Karla suggested another possibility could be to ask the students express the relationship in words and later connect the words to the algebra. Karla then opened the floor for additional question or comments before moving on. Using the NCTM Professional teaching standards to describe classroom episodes like the one above was problematic with respect to tasks, discourse, environment, and analysis because the while some mathematics learning may have taken place the teachers were primarily engaged as teachers of mathematics and not learners. In order to characterize the interaction of the mathematics teacher educators and the teachers we elaborate on the professional teaching standards as it applies to modeling the collective inquiry process. Tasks
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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In the episode described above the primary focus of the task was not to provide intellectual contexts for the teachers mathematical development as learners, but to motivate the development of the teachers understanding of the students mathematics through discussion, exploration and experimentation. With the try-on task, the mathematics teacher educator modeled the coordinated action and analysis of the collective inquiry process. Discourse While like in the NCTM professional teaching standards the discourse during this episode reflected the ways of representing, thinking, talking, and agreeing and disagreeing that mathematics teacher educators and teachers use to engage in tasks, the discourse in this episode is embedded in the teachers classroom experiences as teachers within a community of teachers. The mathematics teacher educator orchestrated discourse that modeled the public reflection aspect of the collective inquiry process. Environment The environment represents the setting or context in which the tasks and discourse are embedded for learning. When the teachers are engaged as learners of mathematics, the setting is a mathematics classroom community. However, when the teachers are engaged as professionals, the setting shifts to a community of mathematics teachers. As the teachers engage in this professional learning community the mathematics teacher educator models the interplay of intellectual and social characteristics of the members of the community that shape the evolving knowledge base of the community. Analysis Analysis in the NCTM professional teaching standards refers to the ongoing monitoring of classroom life-how well the tasks, discourse, and environment foster the development of every student's mathematical literacy and power. In terms of the collective inquiry process the mathematics teacher educator works to foster development of every teachers enculturation in a professional learning community of mathematics teachers. One way a mathematics teacher educator fosters this enculturation is exemplified in the above episode as she listened in on the conversations of the groups. Through this process, mathematics teacher educator examines the group members participation in the collective work of teachers. The teacher educator modeled the analysis of student thinking as a means of thinking about where to go next. She also modeled, we argue, by listening in on groups and selectively sharing what she was thinking about their learning from the perspective of analysis. Table 2 characterizes the mathematics teacher educators instructional acts as they model the collective inquiry process. Table 2. The NCTM Professional Teaching Standards and the Collective Inquiry Process 1) Worthwhile Tasks or Tasks/Activities motivate the development of the teachers Activities understanding of the students mathematics through discussion, exploration and experimentation. 2) Orchestrate class Discourse refers to the ways of representing, thinking, discourse talking, and agreeing and disagreeing that teacher educators and teachers use to engage in those tasks. The discourse 3) Promote teacher discourse embeds fundamental values about knowledge and authority. Mathematics teacher educators, through the ways in which 4) Encourage the use of they orchestrate discourse, convey messages about the
Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.

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tools to enhance discourse 5) Create a learning environment that fosters the enculturation of teacher collective inquiry process

6) Engage in ongoing analysis of teaching and learning

collaborative work of teachers. Environment represents the setting for engaging in the collaborative work of teachers. It is the unique interplay of intellectual, social, and physical characteristics that shape the ways of knowing and working that are encouraged and expected in the community of teachers. It is the context in which the tasks and discourse are embedded; it also refers to the use of materials and space. Analysis is the systematic reflection in which mathematics teacher educators engage. It entails the ongoing monitoring of classroom life-how well the tasks, discourse, and environment to foster teaches participation in the Collective Inquiry Process of a professional learning community of mathematics teachers.

Concluding Response Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) and Lave and Wenger (1991) hypothesize that through observation, learners develop a conceptual model that provides them with an advanced organizer and interpretive structure for reflecting on a given practice. It can be argued that understanding how to participate in the collective inquiry process of a professional learning community of mathematics teachers is important because it provides insights into the nature of the professionalism of teaching advocated by the NCTM. In mathematics teacher education, teachers have the opportunity not only to deepen their mathematics content and pedagogy skill, but also the opportunity to engage in the collective inquiry process of mathematics teachers. The hope is that this research informs the body of knowledge about teaching the practice of teaching mathematics. References Astuto, T.A., Clark, D.L., Read, A-M., McGree, K. & Fernandez, L. deK.P. (1993). Challenges to dominant assumptions controlling educational reform. Andover, Massachusetts: Regional Laboratory for the Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18, 32-41. Burns, M. (1992). About teaching mathematics: A k-8 resource. Math Solutions Publications, White Plains, NY Clarke, D. (1994). Ten key principles from research for the professional development of mathematics teachers. In D.B. Aichele & A.F. Coxford (Eds.), Professional development for teachers of mathematics (pp. 3748). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Solution Tree, Bloomington Indiana Fennema, E., & Nelson, B.S. (1997). Mathematics teachers in transition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Friel, S., & Bright, G. (1997). Reflecting on our work: NSF teacher enhancement in K-6 mathematics. Lanham, MA: University Press of America.
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Hord, S. M. (1997). Professional learning communities: What are they and why are they important? [Online]. Available: http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues61.html Lortie, D. C. (1975). School teacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Loucks-Horsley, S., Hewson, P. W., Love, N., & Stiles, K. E. (1998). Designing professional development for teachers of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. Nickerson, S. (2008). Preparing experienced elementary teachers as specialists: Lessons learned on improving mathematics teaching in urban schools. Sowder, J. (2007). The mathematical education and development of teachers. In F. K. Lester Jr. (Ed.), Second handbook on mathematics teaching and learning, 157-225 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory, procedures and techniques. London: Sage Publications.

Swars, S. L., Stinson, D. W., & Lemons-Smith, S. (Eds.). (2009). Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University.